Mystery 1: The Personal Life of Gareth Williams
Gareth Williams, on the 16th of August, 2010, was dead, most probably murdered in fact. Officially however he was found for the first time on the 23rd of August in his Secret Services given safe house at 36 Alderney Street, Pimlico, London, now owned by a private company by the name of New Rodina. Gareth was first found stuffed quite tightly into a red sports holdall bag barely big enough to fit a man of his size which was also situated in his bathtub. He was found naked, the bag was locked from the outside yet the keys to the lock were found underneath Gareth actually inside the bag itself.
There were no apparent signs of a struggle taking place at any time; no real bruises on his body, scratches to his body, particularly his fingers, or the bag itself such as would be seen from a frantic escape attempt for example, and oddly, he was allegedly in a relative calm position with his arms folded across his body etc. I believe there were also was "some" marks on his body, his elbow to be exact, but nothing more than mere minor.
Taking this into consideration, the mystery surrounding the way in which Gareth really died has raged on. Was he murdered? Did he commit suicide? Was he forced into the bag? And more questions of this nature have continually been asked. According to those investigating the case, murder is by far the most likely conclusion, there being insufficient evidence to prove it beyond doubt however. But this begs the question, If Gareth really was murdered, who committed such acts? Were any of those working alongside him in the world of Intelligence involved or was he just a victim of an unprovoked attack perhaps?
(Image of a bag very similar to the one Gareth was found in)
Well, what we do know is there were no signs what so ever of a break in to Gareth's apartment. If he was indeed murdered, this was not how they got into the apartment and did their deed. Either they managed to get into the apartment without needing to break in, or Gareth quite possibly knew his attackers. Something that's quite possible taking into consideration a Mediterranean couple who were seen in that location and who the police are still keen to talk to as of today, but this will be discussed in more detail later on in this thread.
For now though, let's remind ourselves who we're really talking about here - Originally he, Gareth, was born in Anglesey, North Wales, in 1979. At school he was a smart student, naturally gifted at mathematics in particular, something which of course contributed to his later life and job. He continued on in this path to become a true expert in the field and at the mere age of 17 he first graduated with a first-class degree from Bangor University where he was studying mathematics part time while still at Ysgol Uwchradd Bodedern School.
Due to this, a short while afterwards completing a PhD and post-graduate studies at Manchester and then Cambridge University, this perhaps our most distinguished University over here in the UK, Gareth took up employment at the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which is in short a British intelligence agency primarily responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT)*, in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, working primarily as a cipher and codes expert.
He spent many years here, the vast majority of which he spent renting a flat owned and rented out by Landlady Jenny Elliot, also in Cheltenham. After Gareth was found dead in 2010 however while on a yearlong secondment, commonly known as a transfer to another job with-in the same organisation for those who may not be familiar with the term*, at MI6 whose headquarters were about a mile or so away from his new home just on the opposite side of the river Thames, Williams contacted her and shared that he wanted to return to where he called home in Cheltenham, to his previous job and to his previous rented home.
It’s said he made very clear he didn’t enjoy his time in London, and he was actually only a few weeks away (from his yearlong transfer remember) from his expected return anyway.
Elliott, 71, said the man had been due to move back into her house next week after spending a year living and working in London.(Source)
"He was due to come back to me on 3 September," she said. "He rang me and said he would be back then. He said, 'Can I come back?' and I said sure. I hadn't heard anything else until a lady from the Foreign Office called at six o'clock to say that they hadn't had a sighting or a whereabouts and had we heard anything."
Gareth Williams, something we know quite well now, was a rural person. He often rode bicycles in competitions; he ran often and was into all such things. He's also said to have been something of an introvert, he was often alone, he was quiet, he was shy and he greatly enjoyed rural life compared to City life such as is found in London for example. It’s said he wasn’t enjoying his time at MI6 and hated the "rat race" there, his time with his new city co-workers and so on. In his own sisters words: he was really a “country boy”. *
The job wasn’t what he had expected and he hated the “rat race, flash car competitions and post-work drinking culture”. A keen cyclist and walker, he wanted to return to the freedom of the outdoors. One colleague even suggested he wanted to the head back to GCHQ because people there were more on his technical level.(Sour ce)
He didn’t appear to make, or want, many friends. His landlady in Cheltenham for 10 years said he never had anyone to the flat. In London, one friend, Elizabeth Guthrie said she had never visited his home but he was happy to sit at hers watching DVDs rather than go out drinking. Only too aware of the sensitivities of his job, he was a “scrupulous risk-assessor" and as meticulous as a “Swiss clock”. He appeared to be a super intelligent prodigy who didn’t find it easy, or wanted, to fit in.
Williams was little short of a genius, a mathematical genius in particular. He was also a key member of GCHQ and in the field of cryptography. It’s claimed that this skill of his caused him to travel extensively, such as to a short stint where he was working for Intelligence in America and for the NSA (National Security Agency) working on intercepting communication between Al Qaeda cells in Maryland for example. He's said to have even spent time working in Bulgaria, this for MI5, a military intelligence establishment in Kabul, Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire and even elsewhere yet.
As well as this, he was known to have embarked on highly secretive projects while working for the GCHQ, some of which may even potentially be a possible cause for his death in 2010:
‘He was involved in some very sensitive projects, known as codeword protected,’ said a security expert.(Source)
‘This meant that only the people in his cell would know what he was working on, and nobody else in his organisation. ‘You are signed in to these projects and once you finish one you are signed out and you no longer have access to any data or news about what is happening in the project.’ Mr Williams – a child prodigy who had a degree in maths at 17 and then a PhD in the subject – was part of a team that created devices which ‘hook’ on to mobiles and laptops.
‘It is an aggressive form of Bluetooth or similar wireless technology,’ said the security expert.
He said such devices would be used by spies on the ground to steal data from the handsets of unsuspecting terrorists, organised criminals or officers from rival intelligence agencies.
‘Traditionally, there has been a separation of MI6 and GCHQ,’ said the expert. ‘MI6 has been full of the James Bond types working on the ground and GCHQ is filled with boffins with beards who are doing their scientific stuff. ‘But recently there has been a merger of these agencies’ work and Williams was at the forefront of that. This was why he was on secondment to MI6.’
Despite all of this however, there appears to be another side to the life of Gareth Williams, a hidden side to the life of this supposedly shy individual from North Wales, the man commonly known in the UK as the “spy in the bag”, this of course in reference to his state when first found in mid-August of 210.
For whatever reason, information about Gareth’s life, such as how he had supposedly spent time (although not often It’s claimed) looking at Bondage websites, spending time in gay bars, a video of him supposedly dancing naked but for a pair of boots were found on his phone, were revealed to the public and has become one of the forefront talking points in regards to this entire case, some claiming it as an attempt at character assassination, or deflection from the reason on-going issues.
As well as this though, when Gareth was first found in his apartment, they, police, also claimed to have found around 15 to 20 thousand pounds worth of women’s designer clothing, shoes and wigs, of which had not even been touched by anyone. As well as this were sim cards, a mobile phone, his iphone was wiped also a laptop all of which hadd been carefully laid out on the bed for reasons not known.
What’s particularly odd about this part of the case is most of the clothing that was found would’ve taken It’s toll on his rather modest salary at the time, and according to Carol Kirton who worked at a London fashion store and who had also encountered Gareth there: "She described him as “shy” but "on a mission to buy an item" when he came in." *
(An image of the inside of the apartment, as well as the red wig)
It's something that has become a rather large talking point here in the UK, in large part due to the mystery which surrounds it. How this spy was supposedly leading a completely separate life, one hidden from those who knew him best of all and who had no apparent idea of this other life of his. But, bearing this in mind, there very well may be an explanation out there as to why Gareth was really doing all of this, how he was able to spend so much of his salary on this, why he visited such locations he's said to have done and so on..
You see, It’s claimed that Gareth was not gay, was not even into anything related to cross dressing or bondage as it appears or has been pushed in the media,.. Instead he was being trained for undercover work, something he allegedly broke to a friend of his just prior to his death:
Gareth Williams, a GCHQ codebreaker on secondment to MI6, had two passports and told his best friend that he was preparing for an undercover operation.
Details of the 31-year-old’s role within the secret services are disclosed today in an interview with his confidante and childhood sweetheart, Sian Lloyd-Jones.
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, she said: ‘I find it difficult to see anything in his personal life which could lie behind this.’
She reveals:
- He was training to take on a new identity eight months before he was found dead.
- He often purchased designer women’s clothes, but she insists they were gifts for her and his sister.
- The maths genius was found dead two days before he was due to visit Paris with his sister.
The revelations shed new light on Mr Williams’s work which, until now, had been regarded as highly technical and carrying little risk.
‘He said he was learning his new identity,’ she said. ‘In February he said he’d be unavailable for nine days because he was on a training exercise. He’d often go away, so I didn’t think any more about it.’(Source)
Ms Lloyd-Jones added that she last heard from Mr Williams on the day he was last seen alive when he was ‘happy and warm and the same as he always was’.
But it was Mr Williams’s sister – who was due to accompany him on a trip to Paris later that week – who alerted her that something may be wrong when she couldn’t get hold of him on the phone. She said that was when she became worried ‘because he’s like clockwork, he’s so predictable’.
Now this is where the first mystery seems to come in, Gareth Williams's supposed cross dressing lifestyle, something that became a huge talking point here in the UK in regards to this case largely as It has become a potential reason for why he may have died, and is also discussed in the next post of this thread, but is it true? I'm not convinced in all honesty. As are his close friends and family, the latter of which he was extremely close to. Of course however they could be in denial, something we have to consider, but at the same time they also know Gareth better than anyone else out there.
(The remaining Family members)
First off, the bondage mystery as it became known. Here in the UK we're commonly being told Gareth Williams visited Bondage websites and was "into" such thing's, this perhaps an explanation for his death - Specifically how he could've got into the bag himself and willingly. What is the true case though, did he have a fascination with bondage that we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt?
Dr Wilcox said IT experts who examined his computer history found he had only visited bondage websites on four separate dates.(Source)
She said there was also no evidence that he had researched claustrophilia - where people gain sexual gratification from being in enclosed spaces.
Dr Wilcox said the amount of internet activity regarding bondage formed a "tiny, tiny, tiny" part of his browser history.
Explaining her reasons for ruling out the involvement of bondage in his death she said in order for Mr Williams to have got into the bag in the bath alone and unaided, he would have left foot and fingerprints around the bath.
Dr Wilcox said she believed if Mr Williams had got into the bath alone he would have taken a knife with him as he was a "scrupulous risk assessor".
At the same time however, we have the story of how a few years prior to his death landlady Jenny Elliot found him tied to his bedposts in what Gareth claimed was an attempt at escapology, Elliot however maintaining It was sexually related:
Several years before Williams’s death, his Cheltenham landlord and landlady had to cut through knots to free him when his cries for help led them to discover him tied up in his boxers on his bed. “Gareth, we cannot have you doing this,” exclaimed a perplexed Brian Elliot. The Elliots and Williamses never mentioned the incident again, though the Elliots decided that it did not involve escapology related to Williams’s secret work.(Source)
These snapshots from his private life suggest why a man in touch with his feminine side may have been unhappy at Vauxhall Cross, with its strong quotient of hard-drinking public schoolboys and ex-military types telling tales of derring-do in foreign parts. He had been granted a transfer back to GCHQ shortly before his death, and evidently felt ill at ease in London and alienated by SIS’s culture of red tape.
In regards to the clothing and shoes, thousands of pounds worth, well, according to Gareths sister and close friend, they were merely gifts and can be explained beyond any doubt as shown here:
As for the latest allegations, Sian rejects them absolutely. While most men might not keep thousands of pounds of designer clothes, she says it was merely a sign of his generosity. She told police in the summer that Gareth would often buy her and his sister, Ceri, expensive gifts and she believes the clothes were meant for them.( Source)
As if to prove it, she points to her £760 Stella McCartney PVC trousers which were a present from Gareth.
She says: ‘I’ve seen every item of clothing that was there in the flat. There was Diana von Furstenberg, Stella McCartney, all in a size 6 or 8 which he wouldn’t even fit an arm or a leg into. He was small but not that small. And the shoes they found in his apartment were not in his size, but his sister’s. He was so generous you wouldn’t believe.
'I truly believe if he had any interest in homosexuality, he would have spoken to his sister and to me as well.'
‘The list is endless. He bought me a high-end Balenciaga top, a Gucci bag, a Mulberry bag, an Armani fur. He did the same for his sister. I truly believe that Ceri and I were going to receive the clothing. We received so many things from him, that wouldn’t have been strange.’
As for the women’s wigs, Sian says there is an entirely innocent explanation. ‘He and an American friend were going to a fancy-dress party in October,’ she says. One of his hobbies was Japanese superhero cartoons and they were going to go as two of the characters. They were pink and yellow and those are the only wigs that were found.
Fiona Wilcox has also ruled out the possibility of cross dressing on the grounds that the clothing was all in It's original rapping and was also too small a size for Gareth thus were more than likely gifts.
Personally I do doubt the stories we’ve heard about his life. We cannot show beyond a reasonable doubt that he was into anything Bondage related, thus there is no real reason to suggest this was why he may have willingly got into the bag himself, and we don’t have a real, genuine reason to believe the clothing was bought for him. It was not his size and he had a history with being extremely generous and I’m more inclined to believe that’s what they were as opposed to being a cover for any sort of under-cover work, something I don’t believe Gareth was involved in, It just doesn’t fit his personality to me.
All of this certainly does beg the question though, How did Gareth really find himself into the red holdall bag? Was he murdered and stuffed into it? Did he go willingly and then be unable to escape, or perhaps forced in there by someone?
edit on 9-5-2012 by Rising Against because: (no reason
given)
sorry had to. Probably some GHB tea. 
